Tag Archives: Healthcare

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I’m Healthy: I Don’t Need Health Insurance

Matt Blog PostIt’s the call you never want to get. “Honey, there has been an accident….”

This is what my friend Kelley heard on the other end of the line when, Matt, her husband (boyfriend at the time), called to tell her he was in a motorcycle accident.

In the summer of 2011, Matt was interning at Chrysler and about to start his senior year at Michigan State. Earlier that year, Matt was taken off his parent’s health insurance plan. Because he was still in school and only working part-time, he decided to not sign up for health insurance. Paying for rent and tuition was on his mind more than healthcare.

One day, he went out for an innocent motorcycle ride with a friend and in a split second everything changed. A car pulled out in front of him and clipped the front of his bike throwing him into the median. Matt managed to avoid any broken bones or head trauma. Road rash and a totaled bike were the extent of his injuries. The ambulance came and he was rushed to the hospital.

Once he was treated by a physician, he called Kelley to let her know he was okay. The first thing that came to Kelley’s mind was the fact he did not have health insurance and how would he pay for the medical bills he was likely to incur.

In the state of Michigan, an accident between a motorcycle and another vehicle, auto-insurance of the “party at fault” foots the bill. However, if there is an accident between two motorcycles, auto-insurance does not cover the claim.

In Matt’s case, he “got lucky.” Not only could the accident have been a lot worse, he may have been left with a pile of medical bills with no way of paying them.

I often get a lot of questions from friends and family asking “How do I know what plan is right for me?” or “I’m healthy, do I need to have health insurance?” I can easily list all the reasons why they need healthcare, but at the end of the day, I cannot make the decision for them. We have to think about what our needs are currently and think about where they might be throughout the next year.

Kelley and Matt’s story is a perfect example. You have to be thinking about the “What if’s.”

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What Does Health Insurance Cover? VIDEO

We go to great lengths to prevent ourselves from getting sick, right? However, are those “well check-ups” covered by your health insurance policy? It used to be that insurance companies only covered the services that were most cost effective for them. This video explains how basic services like preventative care are now required to be covered by all health insurance policies (including Medicare).

I hope this post helps you Spin Your Healthcare Your Way!

P.S.

During the next few weeks I’ll be finalizing my ebook, Easy Healthcare: Choosing an Insurance Plan. If you have any questions about specific coverage options, please let me know!

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Making Tough Choices for Your Family’s Healthcare: Are You Ready?

unnamedAs many of you know, I’m a single mom of two beautiful grown daughters who are a little more than two years apart.

When I started out, I didn’t think much about health insurance or anything like it. I thought my life and my future family’s life would go along as everyone thinks it will…happy and uneventful. 

But then one of my girls was born with a life-threatening condition.  And when my youngest daughter was 18 months old, my husband and I divorced, leaving me to care for both my girls on my own. So, like many people going through a major life change, I was forced to make some hard decisions about health insurance that I never thought I would have to. 

This is how life is.  You often must make tough choices when you are least prepared.  

So what did I do?

First, I recognized how important having health insurance is.  As a single mom, there was no way for me to pay for all of our medical bills since my daughter was in and out of the hospital.  She also required a lot of medical supplies which were beyond anything I could afford on my own.

For me, I changed jobs so that we could have better health insurance coverage.  I was lucky to get a job at the hospital where many of my daughter’s doctors were located. Unlike today, when we have the the option of signing up for healthcare on the health exchanges created by ObamaCare, the only way I could change my health insurance was to change jobs.

At that time, I had to take the risk that my new employer would refuse to pay for my daughter’s care because her condition might be considered pre-existing.  Now, under ObamaCare, you can change jobs and your new employer can’t refuse to cover your care due to pre-existing conditions.

Next, I made sure that the doctors and hospitals taking care of my daughter participated in my new insurance plan.  It was very important to me that she continue to receive the expert care that she needed.

By making sure those doctors and hospitals participated in my plan, I avoided overwhelming medical bills.  When I first started looking at new insurance plans, I was tempted to just look at the monthly premium cost. I was single mom with a new job and that monthly cost represented a huge chunk of my paycheck. But my first priority was to keep my daughter’s doctors who had taken such good care of her. If I had gone with a cheaper insurance I would have had to  to pick new doctors OR pay huge bills because those doctors weren’t a part of my plan. By saving $100 a month, I might have been signing up for thousands in uncovered expenses.  With a sick child, the last thing I could handle was overwhelming medical bills.

I’m happy to report that we received amazing care and my daughters are now both healthy and grown.  It was a tough time but we made it through with great insurance and didn’t get saddled with a ton of medical bills.

When you have tough choices, it can be overwhelming. I know, I’ve been there.  But with the right information, you can be have the peace of mind that you’ve made the right decisions for you and your family. 

I hope this post helps you Spin Your Healthcare Your Way!

P.S.

During the next few weeks I’ll be finalizing my ebook, Easy Healthcare: Choosing an Insurance Plan.  Let me know what your toughest choices are when it comes to health insurance and I’ll make sure we have that covered for you!